Death at La Fenice

by Donna Leon

  He gave no sign whatsoever of his approval and, instead, asked, ‘And Santore? Did your husband say anything in particular about him?’

  ‘Not that I can remember.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘This was a subject we did not agree on. I had no patience with his prejudice, and he knew that, so we avoided, by mutual consent, any discussion of the subject. Helmut was enough of a musician to keep his personal feelings to the side. It was one of the things I loved about him.’

  ‘Were you faithful to him, Signora?’

  It was a question she had clearly been anticipating. ‘Yes, I think I was,’ she said after a long silence.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s a remark I can’t interpret,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘It depends, I think, on what you mean by ‘faithful’.

  Yes, he supposed so, but he also supposed that the meaning of the word was relatively clear, even in Italy. He was suddenly very tired of this. ‘Did you have sexual relations with anyone else while you were married to him?’

  Her answer was immediate. ‘No.’

  He knew it was expected of him, so he asked, ‘Then why did you say only that you thought you were?’

  ‘Nothing. I was simply tired of predictable questions.’

  ‘And I of unpredictable answers,’ he snapped.

  ‘Yes, I imagine you would be.’ She smiled, offering a truce.

  Since he hadn’t bothered with the charade of the notebook, he couldn’t signal the end of the interview by putting it in his pocket. So he got to his feet and said, ‘There is one more thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘His papers were brought back to you yesterday morning. I would like your permission to take another look at them.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you were supposed to do while you had them?’ she asked, making no attempt to hide her irritation.

  ‘There was some confusion at the Questura. The translators saw them, then they were returned before I saw them. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I’d like to take a look at them now, if I might. I’d also like to speak to your maid. I spoke to her briefly when I came in, but there are some questions I’d like to ask her.’

  ‘The papers are in Helmut’s office. It’s the second door on your left.’ She chose to ignore his question about the maid and remained seated, not bothering to extend her hand to him. She watched as he left the room, then she went back to waiting for her future.

  Brunetti walked down the corridor to the second door. The first thing he saw when he entered the room was the buff envelope of the Questura, sitting on the desk, unopened, still plump with documents. He sat at the desk and pulled the envelope towards him. Only then did he glance out the window and notice the rooftops that soared away from him across the city. In the distance, he could see the steeply pointed bell tower of San Marco and, to his left, the grim façade of the opera house. He pulled his attention away from the window and ripped open the envelope.

  The papers, which he had already read in translation, he placed to one side. They concerned, he knew, contracts, engagements, recordings, and he had judged them to be of no importance.

  He pulled three photographs from the envelope. Predictably, the report he had read made no mention of photos, probably because there were no words written on them. The first was of Wellauer and his widow, taken at a lake. They appeared tanned and healthy, and Brunetti had to remind himself that the man must have been over seventy years old when the photo was taken, for he didn’t look much older than Brunetti, he imagined. The second photo showed a young girl standing by a horse, a docile short thing, as round as it was high. The girl had one hand raised to the bridle of the horse and one foot halfway between the ground and the stirrup. Her head was swung around at an awkward angle, obviously caught off guard by the photographer, who must have called to her just as she was about to mount. She was tall and slender and had her mother’s light hair, which swung out in two long braids under her riding helmet. Taken by surprise, she hadn’t had time to smile and looked curiously sombre.

  The third photo was of the three of them together. The girl, almost as tall as her mother, but awkward even in repose, stood in the centre, the adults a bit behind her, with their arms wrapped around each other. The child seemed a bit younger than in the other photo. All three launched prepared smiles into the camera.

  The only other thing inside the envelope was a leather-bound datebook, the year embossed in gold on the cover. He opened it and glanced through the pages. The names of the days were given in German, and many days bore inscriptions in the slanting Gothic script he remembered from the Traviata score. Most of the notes were the names of places and operas or concert programmes, abbreviations he could easily understand: ‘Salz – D.G.’; ‘Vienna – Ballo’; ‘Bonn – Moz 40’; ‘Ldn – Così.’ Others appeared to be personal or, at least, non-musical: ‘Von 5 – 5PM’; ‘Erich & H – 8’; ‘D&G tea – Demel – 4.’

  Starting with the date of the conductor’s death, he paged backward through the book for a total of three months. He found a schedule that would have exhausted a man half Wellauer’s age, a list of engagements that grew heavier, the further back in time he went. Interested in this gradual increase, he opened the book to August and read forward in time; this way, he saw the pattern in reverse, a gradual decline in the number of dinners, teas, luncheons. He took a sheet of paper from one of the drawers in the desk and quickly sorted out the pattern: personal engagements to the right, music to the left. In August and September, except for a two-week period when almost nothing was noted, there had been some sort of engagement almost every day. In October, the number started to dwindle, and by the end of the month, there were almost no social engagements at all. Even the professional engagements had diminished, from at least two a week to only one or two every few weeks.

  He flipped into the next year, which Wellauer would never see, and found, noted for late January, ‘Ldn – Così.’ What caught Brunetti’s attention was the small mark he saw after the name of the opera. Was it a question mark or only a carelessly drawn accent?

  He took another sheet of paper and made a second list, this one of the personal notes he found, beginning in October. For the sixth, he read: ‘Erich & H – 9PM.’ Already familiar with those names, he could make sense of that. On the seventh: ‘Erich – 8AM.’ On the fifteenth: ‘Petra & Nikolai – 8PM’, and then nothing until the twenty-seventh, when he saw a note that read: ‘Erich – 8AM.’ It seemed an odd time to meet a friend. The final entry of this sort was made two days before they left for Venice: ‘Erich – 9AM.’

  And that was all, save for a note that Brunetti saw on the page for the thirteenth of November: ‘Venice – Trav.’

  He closed the book and slipped it back into the envelope, along with the photos and papers. He folded the papers on which he had taken his notes and went back to the room where he had left Signora Wellauer. She was just as she had been when he left, sitting in front of the open fire, smoking.

  ‘Have you finished?’ she said, when he came in.

  ‘Yes, I have.’ Still holding the papers, he said, ‘I noticed from your husband’s datebook that during the last few months, he was far less active than he had been in the past. Was there a particular reason for this?’

  She paused a moment before answering. ‘Helmut said he felt tired, didn’t have the energy he once had. We saw a few friends, but not as many, as you noted, as we had in the past. But not everything we did was noted in the datebook.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. But I’m interested in this change in him. You said nothing when I asked you about him.’

  ‘As you might recall, Commissario, you asked about my sexual relations with my husband. Unfortunately, they are not noted in the datebook.’

  ‘I notice that the name Erich appears frequently.’

  ‘And why is that supposed to be important?’

  ‘I didn’t say it was important, Signora; I simply said that the name appears regularly during the last months of your husband’s life. It ap
pears often, joined with the initial ‘H’, but it also appears alone.’

  ‘I told you that not all of our engagements were listed in the datebook.’

  ‘But these were important enough for your husband to note them down. May I ask who this Eric is?’

  ‘It’s Erich. Erich and Hedwig Steinbrunner. They are Helmut’s oldest friends.’

  ‘And not yours?’

  ‘They became my friends, but Helmut had known them for more than forty years, and I had known them for only two, so it is logical that I think of them as Helmut’s friends rather than my own.’

  ‘I see. Could you give me their address?’

  ‘Commissario, I fail to see why this is important.’

  ‘I’ve explained to you why I think it’s important. If you’re unwilling to give me their address, I’m sure there are other friends of your husband’s who could give it to me.’

  She reeled off a street address and explained that it was in Berlin, then paused while he took out his pen and poised it above the paper he still held in his hand. When he was ready, she repeated it slowly, spelling every word, even Strasse, which he thought was an excessive comment on his stupidity.

  ‘Will that be all?’ she asked when he had finished writing.

  ‘Yes, Signora. Thank you. Now might I speak to your maid?’

  ‘I’m not sure I see why that’s necessary.’

  He ignored her and asked, ‘Is she here in the apartment?’

  Saying nothing, Signora Wellauer rose to her feet and went to the side of the room, where a cord hung down one wall. She pulled it, saying nothing, and went to stand in front of the window that looked out upon the rooftops of the city.

  Soon after, the door opened and the maid entered the room. Brunetti waited for Signora Wellauer to say something, but she remained rigid in front of the window, ignoring them both. Brunetti, having no choice, spoke so that she could hear what he said to the maid. ‘Signora Breddes, I’d like to have a few words with you, if I might.’

  The maid nodded but said nothing.

  ‘Perhaps if we might use the Maestro’s study,’ he said, but the widow was unrelenting and refused to turn back from the window. He went and stood at the door, gesturing for the maid to pass through before him. He followed her down the corridor to the now familiar study. Inside, he closed the door and motioned to a chair. She took her seat, and he went back to the chair he had sat in when he examined the papers.

  She was in her mid-fifties, and she wore a dark dress that could be a sign of either her employment or her grief. The midcalf length was unfashionable, and the cut emphasized the angularity of her body, the narrowness of her shoulders, the flatness of her chest. Her face matched her body perfectly, the eyes a bit too narrow and the nose more than a little too long. She reminded him, as she sat upright on the edge of the chair, of one of the long-legged, long-necked sea birds that perched on the pilings of the canals.

  ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions, Signora Breddes.’

  ‘Signorina,’ she corrected automatically.

  ‘I hope there will be no trouble if we speak in Italian,’ he said.

  ‘Of course not. I’ve lived here for ten years.’ She said it in a way to suggest she was offended by his remark.

  ‘How long did you work for the Maestro, Signorina?’

  ‘Twenty years. Ten in Germany, and now ten years here. When the Maestro bought the apartment here, he asked me to come and take care of it. I agreed. I would have gone anywhere for the Maestro.’ From the way she spoke, Brunetti realized that she saw having to live in a ten-room apartment in Venice as a sort of suffering she would be willing to endure only because of her devotion to her employer.

  ‘Do you have charge of the house?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been here since shortly after he bought it. He came down and gave instructions about the furniture and the painting. I was in charge of getting it organized and then of seeing that it was taken care of while he was away.’

  ‘And while he was here?’

  ‘Yes; that too.’

  ‘How often did he come to Venice?’

  ‘Two or three times a year. Seldom more than that.’

  ‘Did he come to work? To conduct.’

  ‘Sometimes. But he also came to visit friends, go to the Biennale.’ She managed to make all this sound like so much earthly vanity.

  ‘And while he was here, what were your responsibilities?’

  ‘I did the cooking, though there was an Italian cook who would come in for parties. I chose the flowers. I oversaw the work of the maids. They’re Italian.’ This, he assumed, explained the need for the overseeing.

  ‘Who did the shopping for the house? Food? Wine?’

  ‘While the Maestro was here, I planned the meals and sent the maids to Rialto every morning to get fresh vegetables.’

  Brunetti thought she might be ready, now, to begin answering the real questions. ‘So the Maestro got married while you were working for him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did this cause any changes? When he came to Venice, that is.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, though it was clear she did.

  ‘In the running of the house. Were your duties any different after the Maestro was married?’

  ‘No. Sometimes the signora cooked, but not often.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did the presence of the signora’s daughter cause you any problems?’

  ‘No. She ate a lot of fruit. But she was no trouble.’

  ‘I see, I see,’ Brunetti said, taking a piece of paper from his pocket and idly sketching some words on it. ‘Tell me, Signorina Breddes, during these last weeks that the Maestro was here, did you notice anything, well, anything different about his behaviour, anything that struck you as peculiar?’

  She remained silent, hands clasped in her lap. Finally, she said, ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Did he seem strange to you in any way?’ Silence. ‘Well, if not strange in any way’ – and he smiled, asking her to understand how difficult this was for him – ‘unusual in any way, out of the ordinary.’ When she still said nothing, he added, ‘I’m sure you would have noticed anything out of the ordinary, since you had known the Maestro so long and were certainly more familiar with him than anyone else in the house.’ It was a blatant sop to her vanity, but that didn’t mean it might not work.

  ‘Do you mean with his work?’

  ‘Well,’ he began, and flashed her a smile of complicity, ‘it could have been with his work, but it could have been with anything, perhaps something personal, something that had nothing to do with his career or with his music. As I said, I’m sure your long familiarity with the Maestro would have made you particularly sensitive to anything like this.’

  Watching as the bait floated towards her, he flicked at the line to bring it even closer. ‘Since you had known him for so long, you would have noticed things that others would have overlooked.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true,’ she admitted. She licked her lips nervously, drawing closer to the bait. He remained silent, motionless, unwilling to disturb the waters. She played idly with one of the buttons at the front of her dress, twisting it back and forth in a semicircle. Finally, she said, ‘There was something, but I don’t know if it’s important.’

  ‘Well, perhaps it will be. Remember, Signorina, anything you can tell me will help the Maestro.’ Somehow he knew that she was blind to the colossal idiocy of this statement. He put his pen down and folded his hands, priestlike, and waited for her to speak.

  ‘There were two things. Ever since he came down this time, he seemed to be more and more distracted, as if his thoughts were somewhere else. No, that’s not it, not exactly. It’s as if he didn’t care any longer what happened around him.’ She trailed off, not satisfied.

  ‘Perhaps you could give me an example,’ he prompted.

  She shook her head, not liking this at all. ‘No, I’m not saying this r
ight. I don’t know how to explain it. In the past, he would always ask me what had happened while he was away, ask about the house, about the maids, and what I had been doing.’ Was she blushing? ‘The Maestro knew that I loved music, that I went to concerts and operas while he was away, and he was always very careful to ask me about them. But this time when he came, there was none of that. He said hello when he arrived, and he asked me how I was, but he didn’t seem to care at all about what I said to him. A few times – no, there was one time. I had to go into the study to ask him what time he wanted me to have dinner ready. He had a rehearsal that afternoon, and I didn’t know what time it was supposed to end, so I went to the study to ask him. I knocked and went in, just the way I always did. But he ignored me, pretended I wasn’t there, made me wait a few minutes while he finished writing something. I don’t know why he did it, but he kept me waiting there, like a servant. Finally, I was so embarrassed that I started to leave. After twenty years, he wouldn’t do that to me, keep me waiting like a criminal in front of a judge.’ As she spoke, Brunetti saw her agony rekindled in her eyes.

  ‘At last, when I turned around to leave, he looked up and pretended that he had just seen me there. He pretended I had appeared out of nowhere to ask him a question. I asked him when he planned to be back. I’m afraid I spoke angrily. I raised my voice to him, for the first time in twenty years. But he ignored that and just told me what time he would be back. And then I suppose he was sorry about how he had treated me, because he told me how beautiful the flowers were. He always liked to have flowers in the house when he was here.’ She trailed away, adding irrelevantly, ‘They’re delivered from Biancat. From all the way across the Grand Canal.’

  Brunetti had no idea whether what he was hearing was outrage or pain, or both. To be a servant for twenty years is certainly to win the right not to be treated like a servant.